Claire Fontaine

Claire Fontaine is widely known as a brand of school notebooks in France; the name was also lifted by a Paris-based collective founded in 2004 by James Thornhill and Fulvia Carnevale, who call themselves “assistants” to Claire Fontaine. Taking on the third person singular feminine as its subject position, Claire Fontaine describes herself as a “ready-made artist.” Her brand of neo-conceptual art denies individual skill and originality, and engages with issues symbolically in her characteristic light touch.